Nerve and Knowledge
by Quarto
Summary: "This is a turn-up, isn't it, Sherlock?" The story of how Moran became Morstan.


_Now:_

John sat in the pool's locker room, watching as the woman with the gun spoke quietly into a microphone tucked into the collar of her shirt. She listened to something inaudible, and replied in a flat, American accent, "Roger that. We're go in five."

She strode over to him and said, curtly, "Stand up. Your date's on his way." He did, and she tightened the straps that held the plastique to his chest, yanking the last one hard enough that he involuntarily exhaled a grunt.

"Aww, poor Doctor Watson. Is that too tight?" she asked, in a cruel, amused voice.

John frowned, folded his arms across his chest, and said, "Fine. Clearly I've done something to piss you off, Mary. Do you want to tell me what, or are you just going to act like a child all night?"

"Well spotted, John. It's that keen insight that has made you the _Napoleon _of crime."

"Oh for God's sake-"

"Gosh, why might I be pissed off? Hmm. Maybe the fact that I've spent the last three months working sixteen-hour days running my husband's multibillion-dollar organization while he runs around playing detective… and _dating_. Or the fact that he woke me up in the middle of the freaking night to fly to London and set up a melodramatic confrontation at a swimming pool."

* * *

><p><em>Then:<em>

On June 9th, 2009, Sherlock Holmes cracked an Egyptian antiquities smuggling ring which was subcontracting its financials to a secretive multinational criminal organization. Two employees of that organization were taken into custody. Neither of them had any idea who employed them beyond "some guy we met in a pub" so as far as that went it was fine.

On July 15th of the same year, the detective recovered some marginally valuable incunabula that had been stolen from the British Museum in the 1950s. Again, it didn't matter much, this was a very minor financial loss, but given that Sherlock Holmes had now interfered in two cases, the results were flagged to a higher level in that same criminal syndicate.

Two weeks after _that_, Sherlock Holmes and NSY seized sixty pounds of high-grade cocaine with a street value somewhere north of a million quid. From Sherlock's point of view, this was something that happened by accident. It was part of a case which he only viewed as interesting because of the charmingly retro use of a Vigenère square to cipher the daily communications of the street gang that had been planning to sell the drug. The head of the London branch, on the other hand, recognized that he was becoming a problem and decided to push him upstairs.

On the morning of Monday, August second, the London branch lead sat in on the daily conference call with his boss, Ms. Moran. She was compelling everyone to experiment with process improvement, so it was a scrum-type meeting with a very formal structure. He waited his turn, and then said in a monotone, "_Yesterday_ I was working on the taxation basis for our second quarter proceeds. _Today_ I'm mostly going to be doing the same thing but I've also got a meetup with Mr. Van Coon to receive his latest shipment. My _stumbling blocks_ are that we're having some issues locally with a gentleman named Holmes. As far as I can tell he's unaware of our organization but even so he's cost us about two million in the last two months. I'm sending you a secured email and I'd like to discuss him offline if that's okay."

Later that afternoon, Ms. Moran left a voicemail saying, "It's me. There's some trouble in London and it's actually interesting enough that you might like to deal with it personally. I'm forwarding you the email. Love you! Bye. Oh, on your way home, can you pick up milk? We're nearly out. Love you! Bye."

Mary Moran, though not by that name, was at least vaguely known to the international policing community. Some of them suspected she was a high-up lieutenant for an even more shadowy organization, though the leader of that group was almost entirely an enigma. There was some speculation that he was a doctor, or ex-military. His name was possibly James, possibly John.

By mid-September, this man was interested enough in Sherlock Holmes to change several ongoing plans to adapt to him. Moran arranged for Mike Stamford (who owed over fifty thousand pounds in gambling debts to one of her constituent agencies) to make the introduction.

* * *

><p><em>Now:<em>

Mary had clearly been saving that little rant up for a while and he tried to take her complaints one at a time. "Jesus Christ, Mary. You _know_ I don't do anything with Sarah that I wouldn't do in front of you. You have to trust me."

"I do, actually. That's not the point. The point is that we've been married for seven years and I barely see you anymore. I thought by this point we'd be… settled. Have a family. And instead you're in some surrealist bromance with a high-functioning sociopath and I spend all my time trying to teach a bunch of old gangsters how to apply lean manufacturing principles to organized crime."

John frowned. "Mary, did you just start your period today?"

Mary pulled off her balaclava to reveal a fluff of dark hair and glared. "Are you _seriously_ going for misogyny with me right now?"

"No. Shit. Sorry, even as the words came out of my mouth I knew that would make me sound like an arsehole. What I meant was you said "Have a family." And I thought… well, you're a week late. I thought maybe we'd made some progress on that front."

"Oh. Yeah, no," she said, and she sighed, rubbing the back of her neck, "I did actually come on today. But that's not why I'm upset."

"I know. C'mere." He hooked his hands into her belt loops and gently tugged her forward into an embrace. She resisted this, but it was clearly only token.

"I _know_ I've been asking a lot of you lately and I'm sorry, but I do it because I need you. Just like I'm going to need Sherlock if we're going to consolidate our operations in Eastern Europe and so I've got to do what I do with him."

Mary smiled a bit. For someone so ruthless she always had a very hard time staying angry. It was one of the things that helped her balance him out. "You want me to believe that you're not having fun?"

"What, are you kidding? It's brilliant. But it's fun with a purpose. This is what it'll take to get him interested. I had to do something rather similar to get you interested, as I recall."

"As _I_ recall, you sent four men to kill me over a period of six months and when I'd disposed of the last one you took me to dinner, shagged me, and asked me mid-coitus if I'd like to help you rule the world."

"Worked, too."

"It _was_ a bit sexy." Mary sighed. "Though I wish you'd just try saying, "Hey, you know how you like solving crimes? It's even more fun committing them.""

"I'll keep it in mind for the future. So I'm sorry. Are we friends again?"

Mary tilted her head up for a kiss. "Yes. Of course we are. I'm still a bit pissed off at you but we're friends."

John gave her the kiss and said, "Tell you what. I think Watson and Sarah are probably going to split up soon. So he'll want to leave his job and get a different one and then I can take over more of the daily operations. And then maybe he'll have to go visit an old army buddy in New Zealand or talk imaginary Harry into rehab for a few weeks. How'd you like to go back to the island? We'll scuba dive and drink bellinis."

Mary grinned and wiped her lipstick off his face. "Might not be the worst idea to spend more than five hours in the same country if you're going to knock me up."

"Just so."

* * *

><p><em>Then:<em>

On the occasion of their fifth wedding anniversary in 2007, Mary got John a bottle of his favorite 28-year old Talisker and a camel-colored Rick Owens cardigan. At the last minute she panicked and picked up a rather nice barbecue smoker, because apparently the correct gift for the fifth was "wood" and she couldn't think of anything else he might like in that line. She spent around five thousand pounds, in all.

John got Mary "_Storm on the Sea of Galilee_." This was an original Rembrandt, the artist's only seascape, and had been stolen from a Boston museum in 1990 and never recovered. Had he acquired it legally it would have cost tens of millions of dollars, though one of the advantages of being a professional criminal is that one need never pay retail.

When she finished beating him about the head with one of the couch cushions and calling him an asshole (because _he_ had been the one to say "Let's not go so crazy with the anniversary gifts this time") she admitted that she was delighted with her present. Over the next few years she developed a real fondness for the finding and acquisition of "lost" paintings… and then in their forgery, but that was more of a financial thing than a point of personal enjoyment. The pride of her collection was Jean Metzinger's "_En Canot_"- not a hugely valuable piece but one that was almost universally believed to have been destroyed by the Nazis during the second world war.

Shortly before her formal introduction to Sherlock Holmes, Mary retrieved a half dozen of these paintings from the various locations where they were kept. She hung them prominently on the walls of the public rooms of their modest Hampstead home. Despite spending a great deal of time as a guest in that house, irritatingly, the detective never caught on.

* * *

><p><em>Now:<em>

They disentangled themselves, and she checked the straps on his vest again, much more gently.

"Bastian's been looking forward to this all week. You should see him," she said.

"I _did_ see him. What's with the Irish accent?"

"Well, um… it's the only one he can do well enough to satisfy me. He doesn't have my training, you know."

John took in a cleansing breath through his nose and tried to be patient.

"And what's wrong with his real accent?"

Mary chuckled under her breath, "He thinks the character is more plausible if he's Irish. He's got worksheets filled out about his background and everything."

"Jesus Christ. Theatrical little arsehole. I knew I should have had you do it."

She swatted his shoulder, lightly, "That's my baby brother you're talking about. And I doubt the world is ready for a female Moriarty."

"I want you," John said, as Mary arranged his coat, "To put a flea in his ear about that old woman. Because-"

"I know. 'Just because we don't have morals is no reason not to have standards.' Consider it done."

John looked at the holstered revolver at Mary's hip and frowned. "Where's the scope?"

Mary rolled her eyes, and withdrew a thin silver rod from her breast pocket. She flicked a switch on the end and a red laser pinpoint shone onto the floor.

"Really, Mary?" he sighed.

"I don't point guns at things I don't intend to shoot. It's literally the first rule the NRA teaches children."

"It would help me with my performance."

Mary actually snorted at that and her tenuous good mood faded. "You have_ no_ room to criticize anyone for theatricality. I _reluctantly_ got you real plastic explosives but I am NOT aiming a gun at your chest. And anyway, the day I need a scope to make that shot is the day they can put me to bed with a shovel."

"You know, I gave you a fairly simple instruction-"

"You are my husband, _not_ my boss."

"Actually, I'm _both_, and frankly-"

Their snipping was interrupted by the echoing sound of footsteps in the pool outside the door.

"Shit," John whispered, as Sherlock announced his entry, "_Go!"_

Mary nodded, yanked her balaclava back on, and darted out the back door. John took a deep breath to compose himself, and then Mary stuck her head back into the room.

"_Earpiece,_ John," she hissed, before rushing out again. He blinked, then pulled the device up from his collar and threaded it into position.

"Right," he muttered to himself, "Showtime."

* * *

><p><em>Later:<em>

On December 4th, 2013, Mary came home from the doctor's office with cold pink cheeks and a frown on her face.

"John," she said.

There was some sort of important rugby game on, so he was staring at the television, sipping a pint of bitter, and not really paying her any attention when he replied, "Yeah?"

"I'm being blackmailed."

"That's nice, dear."

"Though oddly enough not for money. Apparently he's after influence. Wants a crack at Mycroft Holmes and thinks for some reason that's something I can get him. I don't think he's got any idea about you but he's got more on me than I thought anyone had so I'm a bit concerned."

"Oh, dear. Don't worry, it'll be all right."

"And I'm running off with that pretty police sergeant who doesn't like you. Sorry, but you can't compete with the… pure lesbian _intensity_ of our love."

John had been a husband for eleven years by this point and so he was able to pick up the irritated tone and replay the words that he'd let bounce around his head without touching his brain. He paused the DVR. "Sorry, what? Donovan? Wait. Who's blackmailing you?"

"Charles Magnussen. The publisher."

"You're kidding. That cut-rate prick thinks he can go toe to toe with _me?"_

"Nah. He's obviously missing some fairly big pieces of my history. Certainly if he had any idea about you and me he wouldn't have licked my eyebrows."

John stared at her. "_What?"_

Mary giggled and shrugged out of her coat. "I _know_. But he did."

"What's wrong with people in this industry? There's no sense of professionalism anymore. We've got to bring back the Moriarty character, that's all there is to it. As much as your brother pisses me off, at least he kept the rest of these idiots in line."

Mary nudged him to shift over on the couch and laid her head in his lap. She asked, "So you want me to call Bastian and get him to take care of it?"

John sighed. "Maybe. Do you think you can keep Magnusson on the hook for a while?"

"I think so. He said he thought Mycroft might like to give me a wedding present so I figure we've got at least until then. And we do have a woman embedded in his organization so certainly we can see if he's about to move. Though if keeping him on the hook involves letting him lick my eyebrows again I'd rather get it sorted now, thank you."

"I think we can do that. No, don't call Bastian. I'll make Sherlock do it."

Mary rolled onto her back to look up at him. "You're sure? You think he's ready?"

"Officially? No. But he managed to eliminate most of our competition in Eastern Europe without knowing it, so I imagine I can make it work."

"Poor guy."

He looked down at her and asked, hesitantly, "What did the quack say?"

"Everything looks… good, given my age and everything. Eleven mature follicles. We'll probably trigger Friday or Saturday."

"Wow. Just think… if this works, you can be in "Fat Brides" magazine. Unless…"

"No matter what happens you do still have to wear a morning suit. And the hat. And you can kiss my bloated egg-stuffed ass. I didn't get to do any of the pretty pretty princess stuff at our actual wedding and neither you nor our hypothetical fetus shall stand in my way."

"Fair enough."

He curled over and kissed her forehead.

"This should be interesting."

* * *

><p>Notes:<p>

There are so many ripoffs in this fic. The title is from Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band": "When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge." The inappropriately costly paintings bit is from ACD's "The Valley of Fear." Blackmail payments as a thoughtful wedding present for a woman are from "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton." And criminals who may have no actual morals but do have standards is from Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather."

Thanks to wearsherlock on Tumblr for the ID of John's thousand dollar sweater in "His Last Vow."


End file.
